the power of another phone call
while it proves that i am not a phone call person cos i dont really know what to say or how to keep the conversations going..hmm like i dont know what's going on in my mind... a bit spaced out most of the times..:S... but in this one week, i received my 2nd phone call from friends.
it's quite overwhelming cos no one really calls these days. haha

my dear dommie is very cute and i thot i sound like his mummy....i told him to behave himself, dont play a fool and take good care. very much like what MY mum tells me.........!!!!!!!!!!
and he himself said 'i shouldnt call you linnet jiejie anymore... but linnet mummy...' :(((((
i replied 'you arent that much younger...'
he replied 'yar you arent that much younger.....' ........!!!!!!!!
i think the reception in tekong is quite bad.

the power of a phone call
it was good
it was nice
it was a foreign number. i nearly didnt wanna pick it up after two missed calls. i did. there was no voice. it rang again and it was the booming voice of my dear friend from australia.
oh how i miss him.
i'm so glad he called.
i'm not really a phone person and it really made a great big difference between msning and talking on the phone.
his cynicism and accents and pitch perfect enunciation and radio-worthy voice, swearings and sarcastic jokes all come out more pronounced, sharper and sweeter.

it is also something the very sentimental and emotional me cherish a lot considering how i no longer talk much or at all to our other peers.

10 years on
an hour long phone call made some significance at this point in time.

he shall still be my wedding emcee alright. :0)

im so tired
went out for more than 12 hours. my legs and arms are aching.
dad dropped me at raffles place today for my medical check up which took me nearly two hours. i spent the time standing up, marking my assessment books, listening to my ipod, sitting down, playing ipod games, smsing people, sleeping, staring into space, observing people.
i did an x-ray, vision test, color blindness test, ht and wt.. i grew taller leh. i'm 1.66!?! thankfully no blood test. saw the doctor who rattled away a whole list of qns 'do you have this this this that that that...' (all the illnesses and diseases..)

then i walked over to pen plaza. on the way, i saw some actors acting so i stopped to gaze.
it was elvin ng and another guy who looked like terence cao from afar..quite nice looking, well kempt and smartly dressed. he turned and it was wang yu qing (with his new hair piece thingy)-who looked a tad pissed with elvin for taking so long to do a simple scene. i can imagine the frustration these old birds may have with these awfully raw not-real-actors- newbies who are so much more popular simply cos of their good looks.
so i reached pen plaza to collect my HK tix. then i crossed over to visit my brother's tailor. the two shops were just opposite each other. how convenient. becos i suck at bargaining, i called my bro as i stood outside the shop. he said 'pass the phone to him (the tailor)'.
i sounded like a loan shark or gangster telling the tailor 'my brother wants to speak to you'.. against the backdrop of an already rather seedy pen plaza..

the tailor in his loud booming voice said 'Hi SAM! what are you doing in yr office on a sat (and all the customers in the shop laughed..!?!?!) ...*blah blah blah dont know what my brother told him*..dont worry i will take care of her...'

!!!!!!?????????

he shoved me some cloths to check out..i did, i chose some..then when it was my turn, he recommended me 3 other cloths patterns..and there you go..3 tailor-made shirts on the way.
i'm such a sucker. i'm not sure what will happen if he showed me five or ten pieces.
i also figured with such artistic people (like my awfully opinionated hairstylist), it is BEST not to argue with them and let them make recommendations/suggestions/decisions for you and what style suits you best.
you never know what they are gonna do to you with those scissors and needles...

i had lunch at the shop downstairs. it brought back very fond memories of how 10 over of us would lunch there, sit around, order drinks and talk shop. very very fond memories. the food tasted the same, the celery/green apple juice tasted the same.
i was satisfied.

i walked to bras basah and blew $100 on books and gifts at tecman.

cabbed down to church.

joked with my very funny p5 & sec 1 students. these batch of kids are quite funny, sensible and controllable. so i always joke with them and we crack each other up. last week, this boy keep sneezing, so his friend said 'can you stop sneezing...!!?!' in a rather impatient tone.
i was appalled as i'm also a sneezer...i joked 'it's like telling someone to stop breathing..how can you!!?!'...
20mins later, that boy sneezed too and i muttered him 'stop sneezing!'..
he understood me and we both laughed.

then we had a mid autumn celebration thingy by bringing all the kids and their parents to...lo and behold chinese garden.

i was tasked to carry a huge tray of c wings. hence my aching arms.
i was also tasked to look after 4 kids whose parents didnt come along. they ran up the 7 storeys pagoda..whilst i tried to walk/climb/crawl up...hence my aching legs. my legs were still shivering as i posed for some photos much later..
the kids were thankfully quite obedient and kind to me. listened to my instructions and indecisive decisions. they had to put up with my countless attempts to capture the mermaid lattern on my lousy phone camera.
i think they liked me but not all the adult-teachers felt the same way.
they kept checking on me, asking me where the two little girls were...said they saw the two girls on their own..doubting where this single unreliable unbaked linnet could handle a p1,p2, p5 and p6...blah blah blah..

we ended the nite with some of the teachers and youth helpers at macs for supper. i downed a sundae, lime juice and some fries.

the weather was perfect. yet a sign of God's hands at work. ;p

i thot my mandarin had improved tremendously over the years but once again i was stumped by a lady from china.
this time, a lady approached me for directions. i'm how a waste of time. spent quite some time with her only to disappoint her..and a good part of the time was trying to figure out what 'bei' meant north or south cos that made a hell of a difference in terms of directions...

i took out my hp and she thot i was gonna call someone for help and thanked me. actually i just wanted to use the eng-chin dictionary to find out what bei meant.. too long never play mahjong. i typed north and showed her the chinese word and asked her if that's bei..

i'm such a waste of people's time right?
but i really didnt know where the place was and apologised profusely and left.. altho after walking away from her, i thought harder and realised maybe i knew where it was.
i prayed that she could find the place.

i kinda feel bad but i think i was just too shocked and baffled to slow down and think harder on the spot where the place could be. and seriously i could have just called someone up. but i think it is something i hadnt been too used to do.. helping strangers. my initial reaction was really she could be a bad person, wanting to cheat my money or mug me.

quite poor thing. at 8pm, she was trying to find this factory so that she can get to work.

grrrr sometimes i hate myself...

my mum passed me a stack of papers and asked me to email it to my cousin.
i said HOW? She said internet la.
I said HOW? Put the paper into the computer?
She said I dont know how to do it but internet la. Send it to your cousin.

The papers are print-outs of an article off NUS website about a 'little speech' my brother gave to his faculty, as an alamak..alumni i mean..
my mum told my cousin (also in NUS now as if NUS is a school of 100) that 'your korkor gave a little speech..only a little speech in your school...'
SO you must study hard ok? can earn a lot of money like linnet and samuel.
apparently she also told her how much I am earning and her jaws dropped..all of 20 years old worth of jaws...
hmmm...and i havent told my mum how much my other friends are earning..her 60 yr old jaws will drop even more... hohoho

So she went all the way to sengkang today to deliver mooncakes and spent the day with her cousin. she came back with their home cooked curry chick, fish and other stuff.
this family of mine does all these kinda thing. ta bao every other thing. pass from one household to another. she passed my kid cousin a bag she got from my other cousin. pass here pass there. share the spoils.

i've come to realise my ma's quite proud of us just that she doesnt show it.

i satisfied my steamboat craving with kind & sweet mister b today. love him to bits. some things never change. he is still as whiny as ever and that's why he will always be my dear little kid brother whom i will fiercely protect forever.
ten years on, it is one of the things i treasure deeply and one of the things i give thanks for.
for how he has turned out relatively decent, wise and sober.

i ate my cockles, pork liver and prawns at this place at liang seah street.. it was alrite...so so..roxy's balls taste better but this place was cleaner and less rowdy.
i wanted to have desserts at ah chew's but it was so crowded and i'm staying off alcohol so we went tcc instead. burp. the cute waiter's no longer there.
i hope i can sleep tonight cos i just downed a latte.. :S

i'm so happy that i'm up healthy and hungry because that means i can go out and eat loads of stuff and stuff myself silly and meet up with all the friends that i wanna meet. it's such a pleasure to be pigging out..just that i think i really need to watch what i feed myself with... the machine will get damaged if it gets crap all the time.

as i made myself a bowl of instant noodles...several thoughts come to mind.

1) i'm reminded of how my mum cooked that for my bro's pri sch friends and there was this poor boy who found it too salty (possibly he got the part where the mee wasnt stirred properly and had all the msg over it) and kept quiet but just kept drinking the soup. it was a hilarious sight.

2) i have steamboat cravings. which should be satisfied by tomorrow. yay! ah B's my good brother. ;D

some time this year i taught my students three things from Romans 8.

1) God loves us
2) God graciously gives us all things, even His Son Jesus Christ
3) If God is for us, who can be against us.

The application is for us to understand that we are not in this sorry world, helpless and loserfied or defeated but we have the love and care of the mighty God. We are also not without resources to lead this life. It is stated in the bible that He will give us stuff. He will provide for us. He GRACIOUSLY gives. i.e. we will never lack stuff.
Lastly, I liken it to him being our Big Brother in a gang..and it is like having the most powerful gangster leader around town backing you up..(ok my young and dangerous ku huo zai hang-up days) ...who else would dare to bully me??? of cos i would daringly go out and "beat other people up" and have no fear because i've the most powerful Lord protecting me. what comfort. what assurance.

of cos my most brilliant student comes back and attempts to offer an understanding of what i've taught him..

God loves me-so i can rob the bank and succeed
God will give me all things- money from robbing the bank
God is For Me so He will protect me as I rob the bank.

kwa kwa

the chinese are indeed a smart bunch of people. nevermind whatever the ocassion or how ludicrious the story goes, one can always turn it to a big money making spinner.
i cant figure but i think lotus paste mooncakes is one of the most terrible tasting food on planet earth.
but alas we've been caught into it with credit card discounts and snow skin durian flavored mooncakes.
i bought a box. my bro bought a box. all on the same day. same flavor. different brand. the verdict: his tasted better and mum still has mine stuck up in the freezer.

cousin called me at work today and i got a little worried. fortunately, turned out that she wanted to check with me how she can pass my mum some boxes of mcs to distribute to the rest of the aunties uncles. so very thoughtful and sweet of her just that i'm not a big mc fan....
so mum spent the evening calling up all her brother sister to check with them if they would like the mc.......in between lamenting about how cousin shouldn't have done all that..blah blah blah
i've a feeling someone has to drive up to sengkang this weekend..

so i am a christmas scoorge but if there's anything i can take delight from this really out of this world festival is it gives us opportunities to share some love.
my cousin i figured was taking this opportunity to show her appreciation for how we've stood by them the past year. it is also a good time to remember those who have been forgotten..
she mentioned to ma she's doing it cos it was something her mum used to do. i joked we welcome CNY bah kwas instead.

i need to get rid of the sinking feeling everytime she calls though..

i brought joo-lee to work today. hee hee hee.
cant seem to upload the photo but check out my msn pic.
my awfully cute jooly.
i brought him along for my jaychou classes.

took him out as i walked back home.

this part of me will never grow up and i just want to stay childish if you like.
my space of denial and make-believe.

i wonder about what will happen to people who are intellectually 'lower' than most normal people. i'm sure you know a few of such people. they can't think for themselves. they are slower. they are either always at the butt of people's jokes or they always need help from people.
we wonder how they are gonna advance in life..we wonder why must we always slow down for them.

then there's my 60 year old father who has decided to resign/retire. i'm not sure what's going thru his mind but i would be thinking for myself-what am i gonna do with all this spare time. surely one would wonder how have i lived my adult life the past 40 years..have i achieved it...have i made it... or is there more?
more often than not, most singaporeans would have dutifully slogged thru these 40 years, accummulated a stash of retirement funds and prepare for death. grandkids are a bonus.

i seriously wonder what is life and what is the meaning of life. don't you. apparently a lot of people don't. they just numb themselves with work, booze, tv (oops), food, something, and fight all the battles that come along the way ..from nasty bosses to backstabbing colleagues to irritating mrt passengers to rowdy hawkers.. ocassionally they reward themselves with a hearty meal (which potentially makes the heart work harder with all the cholestrol and calories) or a trip down under or up north or around the world.
is that life?
where you seek to earn money, stoop to nothing to get as much as possible, save money, stinge your whole life thru, only so that you can spend it later.

and for some, there isnt even a 'later'.

misery is when your nose is blocked to the core and there's nothing you can do about it. i drank nearly half a bottle of cough syrup...taken all the flu tablets and vitamin Cs and everything else under the sun and it is still blocked. living dead i am.
ho sun fu.

the only cheer is my bro came back with 10 cream puffs and 3 boxes of strudels from perth. he told me that a young custom officers mumbled under his breath if custard is considered liquids..cos liquids arent allowed..... if it really was so, he and his colleague had 40 creampuffs to gorge down at the airport..
i gave the huge cream puff that i was eating another look to check if the custard looked remotely liquid...

i never knew there was so much satisfaction in remembering a friend's birthday. he called me back and asked me when am i gonna meet my godson...... hahah.......two and counting... i told him when he has five.... hahaha

i've no idea why i like this show but i do. the main leads are two old men. t.w.o o.l.d. m.e.n ..james spader and william shatner..
i'm appalled but the show's smart and funny. serious yet engaging.

when the phone beeps at 645am, i cant help but feel it may not be good news..

Fortunately...

Girl who shall not be named: "got to sms you b4 i forget..i dreamt that you found a bf and his name is shaun. but you were just telling me abt it in my dream so i can't tell you how he looks..."

me: 'N i thought who would sms this early in the morn. oh get back to sleep to find out wat he looks like! haha'

Girl who shall not be named:" sorry ah...got no time to go back to sleep this morning. see whether i will dream of part 2 tonite ;-)"

i told ma and she asked me to reply that i dreamt she got married.....

when you've watched all the tv there are, when you've read enough of your bible, when you've slept all that is possible, when you've eaten your fullest fill, it is but time to take out the broom to sweep the floor-and when you've done that-it is time to reflect about life.

i've a month more at my current workplace. it is exciting yet heavy-hearted. [i've not mentioned to my dear readers that i've a job offer liao just that i've not signed anything hence i rather not talk about it yet].

humans are humans of regrets. it is only when you realise you've so much time left with someone, some people, that you try to make the most out of it and try to cherish whatever possible time we have together.

i will miss the many aunty-colleagues who have stuck by me, who gave me much advice (mainly on fashion and getting hitched), who provided a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on, an outlet to vent frustrations, who tried to break into my toilet cubicle, whom i fry maxwell hum chim peng with, queue for odeh odeh, chicken rice and coffee, walked a few streets to eat grass (read: organic food), chiong at sales (during lunch hours and after work!) and yes helped me with my work.

i thought i was getting quite effectively billingual after 4 years of speaking much mandarin at work...
then i met her.
we went home together yesterday. she hails from the land of the middle kingdom and all my singlish, english and utterly broken mandarin came out.
i can't speak in proper sentences to save my life.

my cousin called but i picked up the phone and spoke to her this morning in my husky sexy voice. she had called to check on my mum, after my smses last nite.
i was kinda surprised that mum tells her more stuff than she tells me.
i asked her how is her family and aunt coping and as expected her reply was 'we dont talk about it and my mum doesnt show anything..no emotion, no expression, no feeling'..

my other cousin used to get me to pass msg to my mum to talk to my late aunt stuff... here am i now telling this cousin to talk to my mum...

going round the mulberry bush.

i went to work with a slight hoarse voice..i figured it's because i screamed too much, sang too much and talked too much.
i screamed too much because i led a game and the players, in particular ms toyota, screamed louder than me.
i sang too much because i coerced michie to be my jazz bar lounge piano player and me, the pseudo jazz bar lounge singer.
i talked too much because i just do.

the irony of it (again)- the night before i was kinda laughing at chammie's sexy husky lost-her-voice voice.

it was a packed weekend. i dont get it. when i'm free, i'm very free..when i'm not, everything comes apacking.
the bro came home saturday morning and i thot my mum became happier, cheerier, chirpier.
he jet setted off down under but of cos that didnt add to the gloom that ma's facing.
i had to do something i consider rather drastic- i smsed my cousins to get them to tell THEIR parents NOT to talk to my mum about my late aunt. apparently one of them mentioned something about paying respects today and my mum's like lying in bed, sulking, headached, with her sunglasses, all moody and emo.

as i walked back yesterday, trying to spot my bro's car (henceforth known as herbie) which is parked in the carpark for a good part of its shelf life..and gathering all the conversations i've had with friends over the weekend...i wondered what does it feel like to have spent a good part of your life away from home. and what would it be like when we grow older..would we have any regrets not being around more..what lies beneath the rather glam jetsetting envious lifestyle..lonliness, missed chances, detachness.
the grass is always greener but what is it really like. replace that jet setting lifestyle with say being overly engrossed with your studies or work..that you have no time left for things like friends and family.
i told G2 point blank-you dont want to study all day long and realise when someone (yr parent) dies, you are faced with regrets that you've not spent as much time with them as you would like.

i read somewhere-no one would say on their deathbed 'i wished i spent more time at work'...but only the utterly most cliched stuff -i wished i spent more time with my family & loved ones.....

of cos time spent is relative and quality is all that matters, one may argue.

having said all that, the irony of my life is i spend a good part of it in my room as well..for all the time that i'm at home.